CHAPTER 2: THE EMPTY SIDE OF THE BED

Celine did not cry until the hospital doors closed behind her.

She walked through the parking garage with her head held high, even though every step

felt heavier than the last.

Three years.

She had given Adam three years.

She had sat beside him when everyone else had gone home. She had learned the names of

his nurses. She knew which songs calmed his breathing and which side of the bed the

morning sun reached first.

And now that he was awake, he had looked at her as though she were a stranger.

Celine reached her car and finally let the tears fall.

Her phone rang.

“Celine?”

It was her brother, Daniel.

“He woke up,” she whispered.

Daniel went silent.

“That should be good news.”

“It was.”

“What happened?”

Celine closed her eyes.

“He doesn't remember me.”

Daniel's voice softened.

“Come home.”

She drove to the apartment she had once shared with Adam.

The place looked exactly the same.

His books were still on the shelf.

His favorite jacket still hung behind the door.

A framed wedding photograph stood on the mantel.

Celine picked it up.

In the photograph, Adam was smiling at her.

She had forgotten how happy she had looked.

She put it down.

Then she opened the drawer where she kept the documents she had never had the

courage to touch.

Her postponed fellowship acceptance letter was there.

So was her medical registration.

For three years, she had told herself she could wait.

Tonight, she stopped waiting.

She called the institute.

“Hello. This is Dr. Celine Carter. I want to accept the fellowship.”

The following morning, Adam woke to a room full of people.

His parents were there.

Victoria was beside him.

But his eyes kept moving toward the door.

“Where is Celine?”

His mother hesitated.

“She left.”

“Why?”

Victoria looked away.

Adam's gaze sharpened.

“Why did she leave?”

Nobody answered.

Later, when he was alone, Adam asked for his phone.

He opened his photographs.

Celine appeared everywhere.

Sleeping in a chair beside his bed.

Reading a book.

Holding his hand.

Smiling at him.

There were hundreds of photographs.

Three years of memories that belonged to someone else's mind.

Adam watched a video.

Celine was sitting beside his bed.

“If you ever wake up and forget me,” she said softly, “I'll remind you.”

Adam paused the video.

For the first time since waking, he felt something close to guilt.

He opened another file.

An old medical report.

His eyes stopped on a sentence:

Patient's condition remains unexplained.

Adam frowned.

He had been told his coma was caused by the accident.

Why did the report say unexplained?

Then he saw something else.

A page has been removed from the file, someone has taken it deliberately.

Adam demanded his medical records.

The nurse looked uncomfortable.

“Your doctors can explain everything.”

“I want the original records.”

He had spent his life controlling situations.

Now there was one thing he couldn't control: the missing years inside his own mind.

Daniel arrived later that afternoon.

Adam looked at him.

“You're Celine's brother.”

“Yes.”

“Why did she give up her career?”

Daniel's expression tightened.

“Because she believed you would wake up.”

Adam looked away.

“She shouldn't have had to.”

“No,” Daniel replied. “She shouldn't have.”

Adam studied him.

“Did she ever complain?”

Daniel almost laughed.

“Not once.”

That answer hurt more than an accusation.

Adam lowered his eyes.

“I treated her badly before the accident.”

Daniel said nothing.

“I don't remember everything.”

“You don't need to remember everything to know that she loved you.”

Adam looked toward the window.

“Did I love her?”

Daniel paused.

“You tell me.”

That evening, Adam received an anonymous message.

You have been looking in the wrong place.

A second message followed.

Ask why the diagnosis changed three times.

Adam immediately called the hospital.

The administrator gave him the original diagnosis.

It didn't match the one in his current file.

The first report mentioned neurological trauma.

The second mentioned complications.

The third simply stated that his condition was irreversible.

Three reports.

Three different conclusions.

Adam felt a chill.

Someone had rewritten his medical history.

Meanwhile, Celine began her first week at the medical institute.

She worked until late every evening.

Her colleagues were impressed by her knowledge, but none of them knew why she had

disappeared from medicine for three years.

She wanted it that way.

Then, on Friday evening, she found a folded piece of paper beneath her office door.

Stop asking questions about Adam Hayes.

Celine stared at it.

She turned it over.

Nothing.

Her phone rang.

Unknown number.

She answered.

A man's voice whispered, “You should have stayed beside your husband.”

The call ended.

Celine's blood ran cold.

Someone was watching her.

She locked the office door.

Then she opened her desk drawer and took out the old photograph of Adam from before the accident.

She stared at it.

“I don't know what happened to you,” she whispered.

“But I'm going to find out.”

Outside the office window, a black car was parked across the street.

Inside it, someone was watching her.

And the person holding the phone knew exactly where Celine lived.